The Food Heritage Foundation, in its new project “Establishing a Food Trail in the Higher Shouf and West Bekaa region” supported by USAID through the Lebanon Industry Development Project LIVCD program, was granted the participation in Travel Lebanon event of the Garden Show & Spring Festival during May 27-31, 2014.
The stand of FHF, in Travel Lebanon, offered a live kitchen where traditional meals were being prepared and served. Specific cooking demonstration sessions where scheduled during the event for participants to learn the recipe and its secrets. Each cooking session was followed by tasting, and then visitors had the chance to buy the meals they loved.
In parallel to the cooking sessions, producers from different Lebanese regions (Shouf, West and North Bekaa, North and South of Lebanon) had the opportunity to sell their mouneh products. In addition, various traditional methods of mouneh preparation were showcased to the visitors such as chickpea milling, wheat sieving, ayran (yogurt) making using the “darf” (goat skin), zaatar (thyme) and sumac grinding and mixing, thyme distillation etc.
The set-up of the “kitchen” transported the visitors through time and space and showed them how mouneh and traditional food were and are still prepared in the rural areas of Lebanon, intriguing them to travel across the country and discover more about the hidden gems of the culinary traditions.
